Twitter killed the blog

torsdag, november 19, 2009

A few weeks ago I was asked to guest blog for the SIME site and I thought I would post it here at my digital home as well.

"Below is a guest post written by Johan Siwers, Managing Director of Match.com Nordics. Johan Siwers is a seasoned online media executive with a passion for entrepreneurial game changing companies. Johan has over the past 15 years been involved in breaking ground for a wide range of media and online media ventures within companies like Kinnevik, Spray, Schibsted and InterActive Corp (IAC). Johan is also part of the SIME Awards jury.

We started to unwind 10-15 stories of these and similar hyped companies in a non academic way and found some interesting cases:

1) About a third of the companies had actually gone bust, sold or merged in a way that had left very little value remaining2) Another third was still in business, but was just barely struggling to survive and had lost most of their visions3) The last third had realized headlines in the media does not pay the bills. They had gone silent, worked on their business model and come out on the other side with a strong offering and business.

In the first category the “entrepreneur” could often be stereotyped into a financial entrepreneur, i.e. a person that put the monetary aspect of running a business first – "I want to become rich". The second category had entrepreneurs that lost the sparkle in their eyes. They often seem to have a problem accepting that they were not saluted success stories any longer – and as success junkies they lost their drive and momentum. The third category of entrepreneurs and companies kept working hard on their value proposition during Silent Years, learnt from their mistakes and step by step they created a strong and solid foundation for their business. The initial media attention gave them a kick start, but that was more coincidental than part of a plan or reason for being. Many times these entrepreneurs had tweaked and adjusted their initial idea quite drastically, and landed with an improved execution better adapted to reality. The improved execution did not always include the-sky-is-the-limit approach any longer, but all showed a sound profitable company.

The Silent Years showed that these entrepreneurs were never in it for the love of making money, not for the love of seeing them self in the news paper but for the passion of creating something out of a core idea or insight. Tetra Pak lost money the first 15 years. It took IKEA 15 years to start its first store out side of, it took H&M 17 years to do the same.

So, what would those stories tell us?- If you want to get rich, don’t plan on getting rich- If you have a calling, work with it, twist and turn, to get it to become a real business- Most business ideas are not invented, they grown up hand in hand with passion and hard work over longer - often Silent - periods of time

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So what did happen to the four companies mentioned in the beginning of the post? Tablefinder ended up in category 1 (while Swedish category companion Livebooking raised 16 million USD this summer). Jaycut? I had lunch with the founder @jonashombert the other day and Jaycut is clearly in the third category, working hard and successfully executing on their updated and improved business plan. For Polar Rose the jury still seem to be out on whether they will end up in category 2 or 3, but given the talent and track record of the entrepreneurs they will likely end up in the preferrred category number 3. Finally, Rebtel, that after some struggle have – as founder Hjalmar Winblad would say it – ”been digging in the dirt” (sv. ”grisat på”) and despite lack of very much public numbers it is evident that they are in category 3.